Author: Jelena Maric

Two University of Alberta (U of A) students have started a program to help Indigenous and low-income youth prepare for the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) and to assist in the overall process of applying to medical school. Alexander Wong and Emily Fong, second-year students at the U of A’s medical program, created the program “MD Admission Initiative for Diversity and Equality” (MD AIDE). According to the U of A website, the program “will make it easier for post-secondary students from low-income and Indigenous backgrounds to prepare for the infamously difficult [MCAT].” “Having noticed a lack of diversity in our medical school class, we saw an opportunity to create an initiative to reduce barriers,” Wong said in an email. Prep101, a […]

Rick Mehta, a tenured psychology professor at Acadia University, is the subject of recent petition calling for his resignation. The petition follows comments Mehta directed towards Conservative Leader, Andrew Scheer, which defended Senator Lynn Beyak, who had recently been removed from the Conservative caucus for refusing to remove “racist” letters she posted on her website. “@AndrewScheer You claim to support free speech, yet you remove Senator Beyak from your caucus. Where is the evidence of racism? Are you saying that the Aboriginal people should have a protected statues and therefore can’t be criticized? Bad move re: race relations,” read the tweet by Mehta. The letters on Beyak’s website were in support of her position on the residential school system, which […]

York University in Toronto, and the FCJ Refugee Centre have partnered on a program to offer precarious status youth—known as ‘Dreamers’—a post-secondary education, according to the centre’s website. The program is called Access to Education and is the first of its kind in Canada and allows ‘Dreamers’ to pay domestic tuition fees while pursuing their degree. The term ‘Dreamers’ refers to youth under the age of 31 who are protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)—a federal program created under former U.S. president Barack Obama to allow people brought to the U.S. illegally as children the temporary right to live, study and work there. Canada also has its own ‘Dreamers,’ many of who have fled from the United States […]